My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
Yet she’s true like ice, like fire
People carry roses make promises by the
hours
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can’t buy her
Bob
Dylan, Love minus zero/No limit
I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is on graffiti
crimes, but as I tell the guys at the Salvation Army, confession is good for
the soul, so here goes. When I was in high school my friends and I
spray-painted the above lines from Bob Dylan’s song Love minus zero/no limit on
the wall of a building that was on the old carnival grounds in Brockport—it was
a message to the world—and most importantly at the time—to the girls we knew. It was a reaction—a reaction to the
unfathomable mystery of love. By the time we were 17 we knew that the overly
sentimental love songs and hallmark cards felt plastic, phony, that they
reflected a consumerist culture’s attempt to sell us something—we already knew
that love was deeper—we knew it was mysterious, that it was infinite—beyond the
simple definitions. The corporate poets were liars. But then we heard Bob Dylan.
He was different, he spoke to us creatively, poetically, he was some kind of 20th
century Jewish prophet, and he said yes, love is depth, love is mysterious—love,
she speaks like silence—and most appealing to young adolescent males with no
money—valentines can’t buy her. She is beyond the definitions and clutches of a
consumerist culture. Even the title “love minus zero/no limit” pulled you in, took you deep…takes you where Paul goes in
1 Corinthians 13:8—when he says, “Love never ends”. Paul and Dylan dare to go
deep, into the beyond—they are talking about the love that is way beyond an
emotion. Way beyond a love that ends, way beyond a love that can be prepackaged
for sale or contained, or broken or conquered by divorce or death, a love Way
beyond something that can be possessed.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 works on us like a great poet,
leading us into the deepest, most transcendent of spaces. Before he does this
though he has, if you remember from our earlier looks at 1 Corinthians,
discussed at great lengths, the Body of Christ, and the One Spirit that we are
all—Jew and Greek, slaves and free—made to drink of.
As always with Paul we have to remember he was a first
century Jew whose Christ-mysticism formed the center of his theology. He
considered the divine in all its forms, God, Christ, Spirit to be the undivided
wholeness within and beyond all individual things—the singular, whole,
restless, creative flow within all of us—the One energy that connects us all—the One energy system that we are all
grounded in. This is, as I said a few weeks ago, not something we share so much
as it is something that shares us.
It is this One energy
that the mystics seem to tap into by eliminating the sensation that they are separate
selves—and in doing so they experience what many of them call love. In the 21st
century we must deal with the fact that No one organized religion has the
market cornered on love. Just because someone calls themselves a Buddhist or a
Jew or a humanist or a Christian does not mean they are more loving. In fact
those labels often— but maybe not always--create a barrier. We know All of the
world’s great traditions have produced persons that have realized the One true
love. And true Love is the felt
experience of this One, singular creative flow that we are all grounded in, regardless of
race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. It is the realization of the one flow that unites all of us, of the
energy that is looking through your eyes, our eyes, right now—seeing itself in
all its different manifestations from all of its different perspectives. After
all, the divine, the kingdom of heaven, is within us. Paul says at some point
we will know fully, even as we have been fully known—perhaps in the fulfillment
of the kingdom, or after our perspective is de-centered. True love of course is
also the realization of that which even conquers death—it must, for it never
ends, it just keeps going. Once this is felt—the anxiety of the possessive
ego-centric type of love is conquered—for we see that a relationship might end—but relationship itself can never end—to be
is to be related—to be is to be united with the other members of this One
body—the One energy—the One energy that we are. This is why Paul says “Love
never ends”—he felt it. It is as infinite as the universe. Love is synonymous
with God---and for God all things are possible—love is infinite.
In the first verse of
chapter 13 we hear that if we don’t “Have” or more to the point—awaken to this
love—even if we sound really great and really spiritual—we are noisy gongs or clanging
cymbals—we are nothing but egos running on and on, consciously cut-off from
love—the felt experience of Oneness. I went awhile back to hear a preacher that
I had been told was just a great-great speaker. I went with a friend who spends
very little time listening to preachers. The speaker finished and I said to my
friend, “he’s pretty polished—not like me, I’m pretty sure I look like a fish
trying to climb a tree”. And she said, “He’s loud, he’s an egomaniac”. She’s
always been a lot smarter than I am. I fear our churches and our culture in
general encourage the noisy gong or clanging cymbal in all of us. We certainly
love noise.
It is the separate self-sense or what some
call the ego that will turn love into
something that can be bought, sold, marketed—it turns love into something we
possess or not. It turns lovers into objects that we have legal rights to—or
not.
In verse four Paul says
love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or
rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful—in other
words Love is not your ego—that can come to an end. Verse 4 is of course
frequently read at weddings—and many people are skeptical when they hear it—but
of course, married people are no worse or
better at awakening to the kind of love Paul is talking about than
non-married folks. This is a challenging, in your face, piece of scripture, it
is designed to make you see yourself, and my full-time job reminds of this.
Just recently I read it at the Salvation Army before a men’s issues group
started. A couple of cliques of guys had been having problems---this kind of
stressful environment makes recovery nearly impossible so I wanted to discuss the
importance of group unity. I reminded them that you can’t think your way out of
an addiction but you can love your way out of one—by getting out of yourself
and recognizing your intimate relation to those around you—then I read Paul’s
words—and things go well in the meeting. By the time the group let out, I had
been there way too long—and a guy, who had not been in that group, came at me
with a lot of frustration and anger—and I began to react with my own. You know,
with that contained but “I’m gonna lose it” look on your face. Anyway, I went
back to my office and another guy came in smiling, having just seen the
conversation. And smiling, he said, Chris, “love is not irritable or
resentful”. I looked at him and said, “Yeah love hasn’t been here for thirteen
hours.” Love is funny too.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things”—including,
um, this, sermon. Love is. It is beyond, and within all there is, it is the
power in all of us driving us forward, moving us to overcome estrangement and
separation. Behind the scenes, behind all our partial or fragmented experience,
It is all there ever will be. It is looking at itself right now. It is mysterious;
it is beyond all definitions, all explanations, and all efforts to contain it.
I knew Dylan was cool, “Love minus zero/no limit”. Amen.
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